January 2022 Transfer Thread

[GhostoftheBok]

we have now lost Sarcevic, Doyle & Crawford and haven't really replaced them IMO.

Crawford didn't cut it in League Two last time we tried him. Sarce wasn't good enough to take us up and neither was Doyle.

"We have to replace players not good enough for the division with some of the league's best players" is obviously an ideal, but I'm not sure how helpful it is as a suggestion.

A lot of this sounds like Burnley fans seeing Matej Vydra leave and immediately demanding their club signs Harry Kane.

As I say, no one player will cure our ills. Unless we somehow get supremely fortunate in the market and sign someone vastly too good for the league. We're most likely looking at marginal gains in multiple areas. I have no idea how good Charles will be for us, but I'm not sure I see a good argument for him not being some improvement over Doyle.

We will absolutely need more in in attack.

[LeverEnd]

Doyle's open letter and the club statements are emphasising that he was the one who wanted to go. The St.Pats manager is essentially saying he tapped Doyle up and got a positive response, even though he's saying it in a friendly way.

If the lad wanted out then fair enough. Time to move on.

He wanted to go. But I’ve no doubt we could have waited till we had a replacement. Their season hasn’t started yet. End of the day Evatt has made a decision. Let’s see how it goes.

Isn't Charles his replacement? We've also got Baka back fit and 3 weeks to add more.

We didn’t have enough strikers. So Charles alone is nowhere near enough.

And we’ve released a man with a goal scoring record better than everyone else in our side put together. In a side that struggled for goals.

I don’t doubt Doyle was struggling. But Bakayoko and Charles are nowhere near enough or good enough or strong enough to be what we’ve got. We are light on goals and Charles has one season of league goals and Baka rarely has hit double figures.

I.agree with all that, but it's one in one out, so not leaving us any shorter than we already were and with others lined up I'm sure. Also I never expected evatt to play both of them together anyway.

[BWFC_Insane]

we have now lost Sarcevic, Doyle & Crawford and haven't really replaced them IMO.

Crawford didn't cut it in League Two last time we tried him. Sarce wasn't good enough to take us up and neither was Doyle.

"We have to replace players not good enough for the division with some of the league's best players" is obviously an ideal, but I'm not sure how helpful it is as a suggestion.

A lot of this sounds like Burnley fans seeing Matej Vydra leave and immediately demanding their club signs Harry Kane.

As I say, no one player will cure our ills. Unless we somehow get supremely fortunate in the market and sign someone vastly too good for the league. We're most likely looking at marginal gains in multiple areas. I have no idea how good Charles will be for us, but I'm not sure I see a good argument for him not being some improvement over Doyle.

We will absolutely need more in in attack.

Sarce left three months ago and we are playing far inferior players to him in midfield still. We’ve massively downgraded thus far. I assume a midfield player with his drive and goals will be coming but again we’ve had to go months with fat worse players.

And our form has also been dismal. So the results speak for themselves.

I don’t dispute that Sarce and Doyle weren’t going to fire us to promotion. But I don’t think any of this squad are league one promotion winning material, bar maybe one or two exceptions. I think Dapo, MJ and Jones. And you can argue the latter two. But the rest are miles off and in many cases further than the two we released.

[Bertie Wooster]

we have now lost Sarcevic, Doyle & Crawford and haven't really replaced them IMO.

Crawford didn't cut it in League Two last time we tried him. Sarce wasn't good enough to take us up and neither was Doyle.

"We have to replace players not good enough for the division with some of the league's best players" is obviously an ideal, but I'm not sure how helpful it is as a suggestion.

A lot of this sounds like Burnley fans seeing Matej Vydra leave and immediately demanding their club signs Harry Kane.

As I say, no one player will cure our ills. Unless we somehow get supremely fortunate in the market and sign someone vastly too good for the league. We're most likely looking at marginal gains in multiple areas. I have no idea how good Charles will be for us, but I'm not sure I see a good argument for him not being some improvement over Doyle.

We will absolutely need more in in attack.

[BWFC_Insane]

Doyle's open letter and the club statements are emphasising that he was the one who wanted to go. The St.Pats manager is essentially saying he tapped Doyle up and got a positive response, even though he's saying it in a friendly way.

If the lad wanted out then fair enough. Time to move on.

He wanted to go. But I’ve no doubt we could have waited till we had a replacement. Their season hasn’t started yet. End of the day Evatt has made a decision. Let’s see how it goes.

Isn't Charles his replacement? We've also got Baka back fit and 3 weeks to add more.

We didn’t have enough strikers. So Charles alone is nowhere near enough.

And we’ve released a man with a goal scoring record better than everyone else in our side put together. In a side that struggled for goals.

I don’t doubt Doyle was struggling. But Bakayoko and Charles are nowhere near enough or good enough or strong enough to be what we’ve got. We are light on goals and Charles has one season of league goals and Baka rarely has hit double figures.

I.agree with all that, but it's one in one out, so not leaving us any shorter than we already were and with others lined up I'm sure. Also I never expected evatt to play both of them together anyway.

We aren’t under embargo so it’s nothing like one in one out and Evatt was only the other day talking about adding at least 3 more and ideally more than that.

So no idea where one in one out comes from.

[Prufrock]

I don't at all understand at all understand why people are comparing Charles to Doyle's record from several years ago. He hasn't been signed to replace Doyle from several years ago, he's been signed to replace Doyle now, who's got two goals from open play all season, and missed co countless good chances.

That's who Charles needs to be an upgrade on. Only time will tell but, god love him for last year, but I don't think it's a particularly high bar to make us better, and if he can get anywhere near his 20 goal a season form then it'll be a big jump.

I'd like six forwards across the front 3 positions. I'm happy Dapo, Amaechi and Kach are good enough, have to assume Charles will be, think Baka is staying. So I'd still like one more as Delf isn't and Izzy is both injured (and IMO not good enough).

[GhostoftheBok]

Sarce left three months ago and we are playing far inferior players to him in midfield still. We’ve massively downgraded thus far. I assume a midfield player with his drive and goals will be coming but again we’ve had to go months with fat worse players.

And our form has also been dismal. So the results speak for themselves.

I don’t dispute that Sarce and Doyle weren’t going to fire us to promotion. But I don’t think any of this squad are league one promotion winning material, bar maybe one or two exceptions. I think Dapo, MJ and Jones. And you can argue the latter two. But the rest are miles off and in many cases further than the two we released.

I'm not inclined to argue with you there. I disagree a bit about the quality of some players, but it'll come out in the wash as to who does what.

Where we can agree is we need better players in that leave. That's just the nature of the beast. I think Charles is likely to be better for us than Doyle and hopefully that's by a margin.

We absolutely need more quality in through the door. I'm not going to go spare if they're not fully fit and firing Charlie Wyke sorts, though. Ideally, sure.

[LeverEnd]

It comes from your suggestion that we haven't signed a replacement. Charles is that. I don't doubt we need more, but in terms of simple short term availability he has been replaced. Unlike Sarcevic, which worked out terribly.

[GhostoftheBok]

he's been signed to replace Doyle now, who's got two goals from open play all season, and missed co countless good chances.

This.

On Baka and Izzy, they both offer work rate and some ability. They're not leading players, but they're players you can count on to "do a job." If your leading players are all out and all the "do a jobs" are starting that's bad - but we will need players like that to cover for injuries. Baka's shown glimpses of being a good player at this level, he just can't stay fit.

[Tails07]

It is a shame we couldn't get any money from the sale. Both of Evatt's first two signings and arguably biggest signings of Summer 2020 (Doyle and Sarcevic) leaving to inferior clubs and leagues for nothing.

[BWFC_Insane]

I don't at all understand at all understand why people are comparing Charles to Doyle's record from several years ago. He hasn't been signed to replace Doyle from several years ago, he's been signed to replace Doyle now, who's got two goals from open play all season, and missed co countless good chances.

That's who Charles needs to be an upgrade on. Only time will tell but, god love him for last year, but I don't think it's a particularly high bar to make us better, and if he can get anywhere near his 20 goal a season form then it'll be a big jump.

I'd like six forwards across the front 3 positions. I'm happy Dapo, Amaechi and Kach are good enough, have to assume Charles will be, think Baka is staying. So I'd still like one more as Delf isn't and Izzy is both injured (and IMO not good enough).

We need to score more goals. Imagine Charles doesn’t hit his stride this season, where are our goals coming from?

Given we need to find 30 odd at least in our remaining games (unless our defence improves beyond all reckoning) so where do you see those coming from? Don’t care if they are open play or penalties or free kicks or what. They need to go in the net. From what we’ve got bar Charles as a possibility it’s Dapo or one in a month or Sundays, midfield, no. Kachunga, Baka…no. It’s a team that doesn’t look like scoring.

So I’m not convinced at all.

[Worthy4England]

I think rushing to judgement 7 days into a transfer window is hasty. Writing Charles off after 60 mins is even more hasty. This isn't the same as Sarce. We trade people in Jan. Admittedly, he'll look fcuking stupid if Charles pulls a hammy in training and we need a spare...

[Worthy4England]

I don't at all understand at all understand why people are comparing Charles to Doyle's record from several years ago. He hasn't been signed to replace Doyle from several years ago, he's been signed to replace Doyle now, who's got two goals from open play all season, and missed co countless good chances.

That's who Charles needs to be an upgrade on. Only time will tell but, god love him for last year, but I don't think it's a particularly high bar to make us better, and if he can get anywhere near his 20 goal a season form then it'll be a big jump.

I'd like six forwards across the front 3 positions. I'm happy Dapo, Amaechi and Kach are good enough, have to assume Charles will be, think Baka is staying. So I'd still like one more as Delf isn't and Izzy is both injured (and IMO not good enough).

We need to score more goals. Imagine Charles doesn’t hit his stride this season, where are our goals coming from?

Given we need to find 30 odd at least in our remaining games (unless our defence improves beyond all reckoning) so where do you see those coming from? Don’t care if they are open play or penalties or free kicks or what. They need to go in the net. From what we’ve got bar Charles as a possibility it’s Dapo or one in a month or Sundays, midfield, no. Kachunga, Baka…no. It’s a team that doesn’t look like scoring.

So I’m not convinced at all.

We can make Santos penalty taker...

Doyle's goal scoring from open play this year was relegation material anyhow (wish him well, though)

[Prufrock]

I don't at all understand at all understand why people are comparing Charles to Doyle's record from several years ago. He hasn't been signed to replace Doyle from several years ago, he's been signed to replace Doyle now, who's got two goals from open play all season, and missed co countless good chances.

That's who Charles needs to be an upgrade on. Only time will tell but, god love him for last year, but I don't think it's a particularly high bar to make us better, and if he can get anywhere near his 20 goal a season form then it'll be a big jump.

I'd like six forwards across the front 3 positions. I'm happy Dapo, Amaechi and Kach are good enough, have to assume Charles will be, think Baka is staying. So I'd still like one more as Delf isn't and Izzy is both injured (and IMO not good enough).

We need to score more goals. Imagine Charles doesn’t hit his stride this season, where are our goals coming from?

Given we need to find 30 odd at least in our remaining games (unless our defence improves beyond all reckoning) so where do you see those coming from? Don’t care if they are open play or penalties or free kicks or what. They need to go in the net. From what we’ve got bar Charles as a possibility it’s Dapo or one in a month or Sundays, midfield, no. Kachunga, Baka…no. It’s a team that doesn’t look like scoring.

So I’m not convinced at all.

Of course we need to score more goals. That's why we're replacing a striker who's got two from open play in half a season with one who got 19 last season. Even if he missed his stride all together we'd only be down 2.

They taken the view he's likely to be an improvement. That's seems a reasonable assumption to me, bearing in mind there are no guarantees. I get that he wouldn't have been your first choice, but they've gone for it and we have to wait and see.

I'd like another forward, but two more midfielders would be ahead on my list.

As for another forward: we've signed Charles for £300k, he's going to play. Dapo is going to play. We also signed Amaechi and what I understand were pretty top whack wages and when he got injured went back in for Kachunga who I understand we'd backed out from early as we didn't think his wages were value for money. If you spend a lot on a forward then there's going to be two decent wedges sat on the bench however you cut it, all the while with Delf and GT playing on midfield.

Would be nice to have but I'd also rather have a "body" in exchange for quality in midfield.

[GhostoftheBok]

The biggest gap in the team is 100% the midfield. Again, we have no midfield. We have some midfielders, but we now have no combination of 3 players that constitutes a decent League One midfield when you look at balance. You can argue about quality in other areas of the pitch, but midfield is the obvious hole.

[BWFC_Insane]

I don't at all understand at all understand why people are comparing Charles to Doyle's record from several years ago. He hasn't been signed to replace Doyle from several years ago, he's been signed to replace Doyle now, who's got two goals from open play all season, and missed co countless good chances.

That's who Charles needs to be an upgrade on. Only time will tell but, god love him for last year, but I don't think it's a particularly high bar to make us better, and if he can get anywhere near his 20 goal a season form then it'll be a big jump.

I'd like six forwards across the front 3 positions. I'm happy Dapo, Amaechi and Kach are good enough, have to assume Charles will be, think Baka is staying. So I'd still like one more as Delf isn't and Izzy is both injured (and IMO not good enough).

We need to score more goals. Imagine Charles doesn’t hit his stride this season, where are our goals coming from?

Given we need to find 30 odd at least in our remaining games (unless our defence improves beyond all reckoning) so where do you see those coming from? Don’t care if they are open play or penalties or free kicks or what. They need to go in the net. From what we’ve got bar Charles as a possibility it’s Dapo or one in a month or Sundays, midfield, no. Kachunga, Baka…no. It’s a team that doesn’t look like scoring.

So I’m not convinced at all.

Of course we need to score more goals. That's why we're replacing a striker who's got two from open play in half a season with one who got 19 last season. Even if he missed his stride all together we'd only be down 2.

They taken the view he's likely to be an improvement. That's seems a reasonable assumption to me, bearing in mind there are no guarantees. I get that he wouldn't have been your first choice, but they've gone for it and we have to wait and see.

I'd like another forward, but two more midfielders would be ahead on my list.

As for another forward: we've signed Charles for £300k, he's going to play. Dapo is going to play. We also signed Amaechi and what I understand were pretty top whack wages and when he got injured went back in for Kachunga who I understand we'd backed out from early as we didn't think his wages were value for money. If you spend a lot on a forward then there's going to be two decent wedges sat on the bench however you cut it, all the while with Delf and GT playing on midfield.

Would be nice to have but I'd also rather have a "body" in exchange for quality in midfield.

You are giving away our second highest goal scorer this season and top scorer last season…(I don’t care where the goals are scored from) for a lad who has 1 cup goal to his name this season and has barely played.

We all agree Doyle was coming to the end of his powers. But he was second top scorer in a team that doesn’t score many. And we only went up on the back of his goals.

So to suggest this doesn’t worsen the problem is to me a bit silly.

Charles has one season in league football with double figures. Was that a flash in the pan? You don’t know. I’d also like to know whether he played in a similar system to how he will play for us? Or did he play in a 2?

[Bijou Bob]

Letting Doyle go has been a financial decision I suspect. He was probably one of highest wage earners in the squad and this season has proved that he’s now well past his best and is too slow at this level. Paying him for another 18 months wasn’t good financial sense and presumably, as he requested the move, we’ve not had to pay up his contract.

We’ve got a bruiser up top now and someone skilful who can come inside from wide. What we don’t have is any real pace or a number ten who can feed a ball between two centre backs if we want to play on the counter. Next in surely has to be a replacement for Sarcevic, but established players are rare and expensive. Perhaps Nolan can sort us another young gem on loan. Crowley had a fantastic game for Cheltenham against us a few weeks back and is apparently out of contract this summer. No idea if he’s consistent, but he ran the centre midfield for 70 minutes.

We also now need a Karl Henry type figure in front of the centre backs, someone experienced who can pull us together and drag us through to the end of a tight game. That might be crucial as two poor results could see us in a relegation battle.

It’s going to be an interesting window for sure. Some talk of a 20 year old from Aberdeen. When did we last sign anyone half decent from Scotland?!

[Worthy4England]

Was that a flash in the pan? You don’t know.

In fairness mate, neither do you. Gotta give him a chance...

[GhostoftheBok]

Crowley had a fantastic game for Cheltenham against us a few weeks back and is apparently out of contract this summer. No idea if he’s consistent, but he ran the centre midfield for 70 minutes.

Just as an FYI, he's currently a free agent.

[BWFC_Insane]

Was that a flash in the pan? You don’t know.

In fairness mate, neither do you. Gotta give him a chance...

I’m giving him a chance. I’m just saying we need others there because our goal scoring options with Doyle weren’t enough and expecting Charles to be enough immediately in a team struggling is asking too much. So we need another option. And some midfield players who score regularly too.